Lilith Saintcrow - Taken

They stared at each other for a long moment, Zach ignoring Julia’s snigger and Brun’s low whispering. There was a crackle of plastic—grocery bags. Both of the young ones smelled like rain and high healthy spirits. They were both more relaxed now, and she’d officially been their shaman for less than a day. She was theirs. The longer she spent with them, the more she would grow into them. No other Tribe could take her away now.

Not unless she went willingly, and was willing to undergo the discomfort of getting used to another Tribe. It didn’t happen often.

Then why am I so afraid she might vanish?

Sophie inhaled, closing her eyes. The fear from her glands didn’t recede entirely, but she did manage to mute it. She raised her chin a little, her shoulders coming up, too, and finally looked at him. “Is that better?” The words trembled just a little.

He wondered what it cost her to struggle with that fear, to live with it just under the surface of every day. “It’s just fine.” The idea of doing something, anything, to lift that burden sounded equally ridiculous and irresistible. “Look, Sophie—”

She was past him so fast he almost suspected superhuman speed, except a shaman couldn’t use it. “I’m going to help,” she said over her shoulder, and left him standing there in the living room, frustrated as a kitten tied up with a yarn snarl and aching with the need to hold her. Just hold her, instead of pinning her to a wall and sucking half her face off.

But she’d initiated it, hadn’t she?

Conflicting desires caught the animal living inside him, made it snarl, and turned it into a serious ache below the belt.

“Damn.” It was the only thing he could say. How the hell could a man have wanted to hit her instead of holding her?

And how could a man get a volcanic kiss like that without wanting more?

Sophie lay on her side, staring at the mutated rectangle of streetlamp shine reflected against the wall. The house smelled like caramelized onions and steak, musk and warmth. It took so little to make a place into a home.

Or a trap.

She closed her eyes. The Hammerheath mansion rose up behind her eyelids—granite-floored kitchen, God help you if you dropped an egg. The receiving room and parlor, the sweeping staircase. The bedroom with the huge princess bed she’d retreated to once every few months, after Mark beat her so bad she couldn’t stand. The maids, gliding on noiseless slippers—they went home every afternoon, and as soon as the prying eyes were out of the house Mark could come home and find fault with everything Sophie had done during the day. The landscapers constantly clipping, mowing, watering, spreading bark.

The parties, worrying over the caterers and avoiding Mark’s drunken fists afterward. The sense of being in a pressure cooker, the heat rising and the tension building, each moment a potential land mine waiting to go off.

Those goddamn copper pans, buzzing and rattling against one another. Sounding just like a lazy rattlesnake.

I’ll bet you’ve always heard weird things, seen things out of the corner of your eye. You were a daydreamer when you were a kid, right?

That didn’t prove anything. But the vampires did. And the faces in the mist—and the crackling that went through all of them before they changed into lean graceful figures, nothing like werewolves in the movies.

She sighed, turned over, rested her head on her arm. She hadn’t wanted to use someone else’s pillow, though Zach probably wouldn’t have minded. He’d watched her all evening, quiet except for when Julia got a little too rowdy, his dark eyes following every move Sophie made.

Not like Mark’s eyes, assessing, judging, weighing. No, Zach looked at her like he was hungry, but too mannerly to insist on eating. Just like a stray cat, careful not to wear out his welcome. Though she didn’t think of cats when she smelled them. That musk, for one thing.

I wonder what Carcajou means? He never said.

Did it matter?

Someone was right outside her door. She’d heard him settle down about a half hour after retreating to this room—the biggest one in the house, upstairs and along a short hall. The shaman’s room. They really wanted to please her. Even Julia, who kept shooting her sly little glances. Checking to make sure she was watching, just like a kid.

Julia wasn’t afraid of Zach at all. Each time she got a little overexcited, Zach would corral her. It didn’t escalate, and it was strange to see.

The someone shifted right outside her door. Oh, let’s be honest, we know it’s him . She was helpless to stop imagining Zach leaning against the jamb, or maybe settled down with his long legs across the hall, that one stubborn curl falling across his forehead. Was he standing guard, or making sure she wasn’t going to escape?

Her back ached. The scab on her hand throbbed. She had the peculiar head-stuffed feeling of having spent all day tramping around in the rain, following Zach’s broad back. The side of her face hurt a little, too, dully. Her eyes drifted closed, and the faces drew closer. The reedy cricket sound was faraway, but definitely louder than it had been.

He tasted like wildness. Like pure sugared heat on a summer night.

That was the thought she’d been avoiding. Sophie almost groaned, pulled the blankets—all smelling of musk and detergent—up a little farther. She was exhausted. Why couldn’t she sleep?

Because something was bothering her. Why would Mark sacrifice her? He didn’t care if she lived or died, right? That was what divorce meant. Still, there were the precautions she’d taken, because he was damn near unstoppable when he decided he wanted something.

He was quite capable of killing her, if he was enraged enough. She knew that now. Not just strangling her or drowning her in a fit of rage, but planning and lying in wait and striking, like a venomous snake.

But why would he want Lucy dead? Unless it was pure revenge. He had to have suspected Lucy helped her. But she’d been so careful, planned for every eventuality to cover their tracks….

Still, he wasn’t stupid. He had to have guessed, especially since Luce had showed up in the courtroom. Lucy was the only friend she had . Other than all the old-money wives, but none of them were in the least friendly.

And Delia Armitage, always watching, queen of the social scene, her beady little eyes fixed on Sophie as if she was always doing something wrong. That was one thing she didn’t miss—all those eyes, watching and weighing and judging.

But Zach was something different, and she could still feel his hands on her, calluses rasping against her skin. A gentle touch, as if she was precious, caressing fingers instead of hard biting knuckles.

Will you stop, Sophie?

The cricket voices got louder. She pushed them away, a warm lump of food in her belly. Finally, a meal that wasn’t all industrial grease. Julia was a good cook, if impatient. And Sophie had obsessed over every meal even before the chef was fired for burning Mark’s potatoes. Between the two of them, everything had turned out fine.

She was warm enough, and so tired. Every inch of her was weighed down.

The streetlamp shine faded a bit. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her. They closed, and when she opened them again the room seemed darker.

There was a sound of brushing cloth. Zach was outside her door, and he was moving. The cricket voices rose, then fell away as she concentrated on making them shut up so she could get some sleep. It was like a radio playing in a next-door room, too soft to discern the words but too loud just to tune out. And highly, highly annoying.